SSAS Design and Performance Best Practices. Alan Faulkner, BI Consultant

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1 SSAS Design and Performance Best Practices Alan Faulkner, BI Consultant

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2 Speaker Bio Alan Faulkner BI Consultant Pragmatic Works Speaker, SQL Saturdays, Code Camps, Webinars Active Member AZSSUG SSAS Maestro-trained Picture 2

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5 Agenda Relational Data Source Design Data Source Design Dimension Design Cube Design Partition Design Aggregation Design 5

6 Learning Curve Different Flavors of Analysis PowerPivot PowerPivot For SharePoint Analysis Service Tabular Analysis Service Multidimensional Scalability 6

7 Architecture MSFT BI Solution Source: MSSQL Tips 7

8 Performance Optimization Processing Performance Querying Performance SSAS Instance/Hardware Resources Optimization 8

9 MDX Query SSAS Internal Architecture Query Parser Analysis Services Engine Query Processor Engine Formula Engine Cache Storage Engine Storage Engine Cache Dimension Data Attribute Store Hierarchy Store Measure Group Data Fact Data Aggregations 9

10 Relational Data Source Design Database Design Use a Star Schema for Best Performance Table Partitioning Calculations in the Relational Database Use Views 10

11 Relational Data Source Design Database Design Keep your data files and log files on separate drives with separate spindles Make use of fastest drives possible/available3 Data files Backups 11

12 Relational Data Source Design Use Star Schema Widely Debated Star vs. Other Modeling Techniques SSAS UDM is a Dimensional Model Highly Normalized Be Prepared to Pay the Price 12

13 Star Schema 13

14 Relational Data Source Design Dimension Tables Use surrogate keys for the dimension key Shorten attribute name fields (if it is appropriate) Transform data to create natural hierarchies Provided only needed/required attributes 14

15 Relational Data Source Design Consider Moving Calculations to the Relational DB Process as Simple Aggregates Better Performance 15

16 Relational Data Source Design Use Views Provide Abstraction Layer Processing Through Views 16

17 Module 10 Solution Check Point Star Schema Calculations in the Relational Database Views 17

18 Data Source Design Best Practices Use only supported OLEDB Providers in a Data Source Do not use the.net SQLClient Data Provider to connect to a SQL Server Data Source Tuning Network Packet Size Connecting to Source Systems 18

19 Architecture When to Use 19

20 Data Source Design Best Practices Connecting to Source Systems Isolation Query Timeout Number of Connections Impersonation 20

21 Module 10 Solution Check Point Data Source Review 21

22 Dimension Design Best Practices Building Optimal Dimensions Critical to high-performing SSAS Solutions Impacts performance of measures 22

23 Dimension Design Best Practices Create Attribute Relationships Avoid creating attributes that will not be used Do not create hierarchies where an attribute of a lower level contains fewer members than an attribute of the level above 23

Dimension Design Best Practices Hierarchy Shape Think Triangular Smaller number of attributes at the top Expand to lower levels as the number of

24 Dimension Design Best Practices Hierarchy Shape Think Triangular Smaller number of attributes at the top Expand to lower levels as the number of attributes increase Year Year/Quarter Month Date Q1, 2014-Q2, 2014-Q3, 2014-Q Jan, 2014-Feb, 2014-Dec 01/01/2014, 01/02/ /31/

25 Dimension Design Best Practices Do not create more than one non-aggregatable attribute per dimension Use key columns, value columns, and Name Column properties Use numeric keys for attributes that contain many members 25

26 Dimension Design Best Practices Set the RelationshipType property appropriately on AttributeRelationships Avoid using ErrorConfigurations with KeyDuplicate set to IgnoreError on Dimensions Consider creating at least one user-defined hierarchy in each dimension that does not contain a parent-child hierarchy 26

27 Dimension Design Best Practices Set the InstanceSelection property on attributes to help with clients to display attributes for member selection Property Value Description Guidelines None Do not display a selection list. Enable users to enter value directly. DropDown The number of items is small enough to display in a drop-down list. < 100 members List The number of items is too large for a drop-down list but does not require filtering. < 500 members FilteredList The number of items is large enough to require users to filter the items to be displayed. < 5,000 members MandatoryFilter The number of items is so large that the display must always be filtered. > 5,000 members 27

28 Module 10 Solution Check Point Natural Hierarchies Attribute Keys Relationship Type Property Error Configurations Instance Selection Property 28

29 Cube Design Best Practices Avoid including unrelated measure groups in the same cube Avoid creating multiple measure groups that have the same dimensionality and granularity Do put each distinct count measure into a separate measure group *** 29

30 Cube Design Best Practices Use dimensions multiple times in a cube instead of creating duplicates of a dimension (role playing dimensions) Avoid having cubes with a single dimension Do use the smallest numeric data type possible for measures 30

31 Module 10 Solution Check Point Measure Groups Distinct Count Dimension Usage Role Playing Dimensions 31

32 Partition Design Best Practices Enhance Query Performance Improve Processing Performance Facilitate Data Management 32

33 Partition Design Best Practices Partition Slicing Improve Processing Performance Facilitate Data Management 33

34 Partition Design Best Practices Avoid having a partition with more than 20 million rows*** Avoid having many small partitions in a measure group Consider partitioning a distinct count measure group along the dimension most often to query the distinct count measure group 34

35 Module 10 Solution Check Point Partition Elimination Partition Size 35

36 Aggregation Design Best Practices What are they? Why build them? 36

37 Aggregation Design Best Practices Consider having aggregations for each partition of significant size Do not build too many aggregations Just because you can Use a lower performance gain with regular aggregation design and a higher performance gain with usage based optimization 37

38 Aggregation Design Best Practices Set member and row counts accurately for the partition when designing aggregations 38

39 Aggregation Design Best Practices Too Many Aggregations

40 Aggregation Design Best Practices Establishing Aggregations Aggregation Design Wizard Usage Based Optimization Custom Aggregation Design 40

41 Module 10 Solution Check Point BIDS Helper Estimated Row Counts Partition Size Usage Based Optimization & The Query Log SSAS Profiler 41

42 Why are best practices important in SSAS? Processing Performance Querying Performance SSAS Instance/Hardware Resources Optimization 42

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